Die Flucht (2007)

Summer 1944. Countess Magdalena von Mahlenberg travels from Berlin to her home in East Prussia to reconcile with her father, who is terminally ill. Eight years earlier, Lena had left East Prussia to raise her illegitimate child, Viktoria, rather than marry Heinrich, Count von Gernstorff, the son of Rüdiger and Sophie, Counts von Gernstorff, who were friends of her family. Lena’s decision not to marry Heinrich, to whom she had long been promised but whom she had never loved, had caused a rift with her father, Berthold, Count von Mahlenberg. When she returns, her father is initially curt and distant. To prove to him that she is a good daughter, Lena once again takes part in the customs of the East Prussian aristocracy. Amid the turmoil of war, she takes responsibility for the Mahlenberg estate. She brings her daughter, who is in Bavaria as part of the Kinderlandverschickung program, to live with her, and brings herself to decide to marry Heinrich after all. But the suicide of Heinrich’s brother, Ferdinand, initially prevents the wedding. As the columns of refugees from the Memel region and Lithuania grow and the front draws ever closer, Lena tries to shut out the impending catastrophe. But a man on her estate keeps drawing her attention to the approaching disaster: François Beauvais, a French prisoner of war. An impossible emotional bond develops between him and Lena—one she cannot pursue. Lena finds herself increasingly caught between her traditional upbringing and a new era. In January 1945, she and her daughter must flee the advancing front with the people from her estate. Her father, Count von Mahlenberg, sees the inevitable collapse of the old world coming, but is unable to let go of its old values. He manages to reconcile with his daughter, but remains behind at the family estate and entrusts Lena with the responsibility for the uncertain future of the Mahlenberg refugee column and the survival of those in her care. When units of the Red Army enter the Mahlenberg estate, he takes his own life. Lena leads the people entrusted to her through a merciless winter from East Prussia to Bavaria. Along this long and arduous journey, her relationship with François develops into a life-threatening entanglement that ultimately forces Lena, at first, to give up this love. In the spring of 1945, Lena reaches Bavaria. The old social order has finally dissolved. There is room for new paths. Lena now makes her decision against Heinrich irrevocably. The road into the new era causes conventions that had previously seemed unshakable to fade: Lena leaves behind privileges, class arrogance, and outdated aristocratic structures of rule. Forced expulsion and flight west have made people who were originally far apart in their upbringing and origins more alike: they all face nothing but the ruins of their former lives and must each begin anew.